


Over the Garden Wall: Mad Love

by earthkidsareweird



Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [5]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Over the Garden Wall Fusion, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Minor Bill Denbrough/Richie Tozier, Oblivious Eddie Kaspbrak, Out of Character Pennywise (IT), Richie Tozier is a Mess, Slow Build, Stanley Uris is So Done, The Unknown (Over the Garden Wall)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthkidsareweird/pseuds/earthkidsareweird
Summary: Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak are very, very lost and now find themselves lost with Bev, Ben, Bill, and Mike when they come across an unusual house with its unusual inhabitant, Stanley Uris, who warns them of some strange happenings.It's Over the Garden Wall but with Reddie and like Part 5
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621285
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of character list:
> 
> Eddie=Wirt (ish)  
> Richie=Greg (ish)  
> Bev=Beatrice  
> Mike=woodsman  
> Beast=Pennywise  
> Bill=Fred the Horse  
> Ben=Miss Langtree (ish)  
> Stan=Endicott (ish)

# I.

Eddie jabs an elbow into Richie’s side, of course, with his good arm because his broken arm is busy attempting to balance cold soup on a spoon. It’s all shaky and full of pain and not even gazpacho because at least then the chill would make sense. He slurps it up, sort of, most makes it off the spoon onto his legs rather than tongue. He looks down then up managing such a false smile.

“Ignore him, he’s an embarrassment,” Eddie announces.

Richie manages a smile with clenched teeth not taking a bite of his cold soup. He even sits there with a fork rather than a useful spoon. He does get in a “He’s wrong.” Beside him the frog ribbits while everybody else is quiet. Bev, Bill, Ben, and Mike are sitting at a table with them, they’re sitting on both sides of Eddie and Richie, all across from the so-called Stanley Uris who they met about forty minutes ago.

Upon meeting, the first thing Stanley Uris said: _I’m not sure if I’ve always lived in this manor._

To which, all parties gawked at them, well almost all because Richie had to go and say in response: _What the fuck._ No exclamation. No question mark. Just a simple _what the fuck_ period.

“So cool that your cousins were with us, right?” comments Bev.

“You realize that I know none of us are related,” replies Stan. He sits there with no food before him unlike the rest of them. Each of them has a single bowl of cold soup, including Bev and Bill.

“Do you have like. . .edible food?” Richie pipes up forcing Eddie to jab him in the ribs again.

Stan shrugs, “I don’t know, I’m not sure if I’ve always lived in this manor.”

Right away Eddie jabs the air in front of Richie while glaring at him. “ _Don’t_.”

Ben leans a little closer to Bev whispering, “Why are we here again?”

To which Bev replies in a not so quiet whisper, “To steal some money so we can get on the ferry to make it to Adelaide’s.”

“You know I can hear you,” Stan states.

“Oh,” whispers Bev.

They’re all pretty quiet after this including Richie who smiles pretending to eat soup with his fork. He doesn’t even dip it into the bowl while sitting there in all the grand awkwardness. The worst is Bill who’s a horse stuck at the dining table unable to eat the soup or even make an attempt. He stands and stares down at it opening himself up to the joke, _Why such a long face?_ Nobody takes up on the opportunity.

Ben looks around the room taking in all the design, it’s a light blue color, sort of reminiscent of a robin’s egg and speaking of birds, there are rather large paintings of birds on the high walls. One after another with large brass frames. Fantastical Roman columns lift the room up with silver frills at the top. He looks up at the ceiling seeing silver and blue crisscrossing each other into some frilly design.

The others keep to their silence, but Ben breaks it up, “So you’re a Georgian fan?”

“Oh my God, Benjamin! He doesn’t know, this isn’t even his place. For all we know he murdered the owners.” Richie takes another fake bite of soup with his fork.

“We should go, we shouldn’t travel at night,” Mike interrupts them. “Could we borrow some cash to. . .” He leans forward to look down the table at Bev.

Bev rolls her eyes. “To get on the ferry so we can go to Adelaide’s.”

Mike points at her, “What she said.”

“Right, right, I’m sure. . .” Stan digs into his pocket coming up with a used tissue and some scrap of paper that looks like one from a fortune cookie except for it being blank. He stuffs it all back into his pocket. “I’m sure there’s something around here.” He hops out of his seat looking around, there’s only the table in the middle and nothing else but bird paintings watching over them. All those small, black, beady eyes are on them. “I mean, there are other rooms.”

“Oh!” Ben perks up distracting everybody. “What? I wanna see them?”

“Why? Because you’re into fucking. . .birds?” retorts Richie.

“Can I stay here?” Eddie asks.

“Smart. We-We-We should s-s-split up,” Bill adds his two cents. “L-L-Look for money.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Eddie pipes up while shaking his head.

Stan nods. “No, he has a point, it could be dangerous there is. . .I don’t know how to explain it.” He casually starts to walk away forcing the rest of them to get up and follow even though Eddie attempts to stay seated. This forces Richie to move leaving his frog behind on the table. He grabs onto Eddie at the crook of his arm pulling him up, he makes sure he is holding onto his good arm. “This place is just so large and sometimes I get lost and just the other day I came across a section I know for sure I’ve never seen before. . .”

Everybody enters another large room, it matches the other except its a light mint green rather than the blue with the bird paintings everywhere and no furniture. They stand there looking around, not really able to make sense of the room, it really had little to offer them. Richie touches one of the paintings while Eddie stands close squinting at it. The painting is just some little brown bird, the sort all around any town or city.

“Look, Richie, it’s you, a trash bird.”

“Yeah, well. . .that’s. . .” Richie looks up at the paintings not really seeing any come to mind. “I’ll figure it out later, probably an ugly one. . .these are too attractive. . .” but he only points at the trash bird.

“Obviously,” mutters Eddie.

Somewhere in another room music starts up, but nobody moves towards it. All the color in Stan’s face blanches. Some song croakes from wherever it plays, not sounding too right and full of dust. _You must remember this. . ._

“I-I-I. . .” starts Stan trying his best to talk over the music as it keeps playing, stuck in a rut as it keeps repeating itself, _You must remember this. . ._ “Um and when I-I was there, the lighting, it wasn’t really right and the room had just one large portrait of a woman. . .”

“Was she hot?” Richie interrupts.

Stan glares at him. “No! She wasn’t hot!” He tries to ignore him, focusing more on Ben, Bill, Bev, Mike and partially Eddie, but Eddie is a little too close to Richie. “I went to close the door and the door slammed shut before I could, then things started to move around and I’d hear voices here and it’s been me, just me, and sometimes I think I see here and. . .”

“Ok, then. . .” Bev flies up a little bit. “I think we should split up because we need to move and move fast, like Mike said about getting out before dark especially if this place is haunted, too. We all need two cents each to get on the ferry so start looking.”

“How are we splitting up?” Ben asks.

“Oh, right. . .” Bev pauses realizing she’s somehow now in charge. “Ok then, I think it should be me, Richie and Ben then Eddie you go with Bill, Mike and Stan.”

Nobody really protests. There’s a shoulder shrug exchange between Richie and Eddie as they seperate. Eddie watches as Richie stays behind in the room with Bev and Ben while he follows Stan who leads them into some random hall, one of many, and there the walls are also filled with bird paintings watching their every step.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Bev talk a little bit about their past. Richie, too.
> 
> There's some singing, too.

# II.

“Please don’t go girl, I’m gonna always love you girl, I’m gonna love you girl until the end of time, Tell me girl. . .” It’s Ben somewhat singing and humming as he trails behind Richie and Bev sometimes stopping to look at the columns in the room they move through. “. . .You’re gonna always be mine, please don’t go. . .”

Richie fucks up the moment as he whirls around to face Ben with Bev hanging out on his shoulder. Ben freezes, his cheeks all scarlet from the embarrassment that pops inside his brain. To be honest, he didn’t realize he’d been loud. “Oh my God! Are you seriously singing. . .New Kids on the Block?”

“Leave him alone,” mutters Bev. She hops off his shoulder hovering between them all. “We have things we need to do so pay attention?”

“So like are you a fan of New Kids on the Block then?” Richie starts to chuckle.

“Leave me alone,” grumbles Ben.

Richie smirks and turns back around and stops. There’s just not anything around them but those bird paintings watching their every movement. “Ok so this is pointless, I can’t even tell if we’re walking in fucking circles or not.”

Bev makes no comment as she and Ben continue walking through the hall towards a larger room, which appears to be a ballroom. It opens up with robin egg blue walls and no more bird paintings. There is some furniture littered throughout the room with no rhyme or reason. All of it presents pastel images of girls in big dresses on tree swings with birds watching them. There are no windows out there and some large wooden cabinets. Ben cuts across the room heading over there first with Bev close to him all while Richie enters and collapses on one of the chairs.

“Who wants to bet there’s just birds in there?” announces Richie.

The other two ignore him while he camps out on the seat. Ben opens the first to find it empty. He sighs and moves to the next with Bev landing on his shoulder. “So what’s your story, New Kid?”

Ben pauses holding the doors open to nothing again. “What do you mean?

“I don’t know anything about you,” replies Bev.

“HEY! You also don’t know anything about me!” Richie yells from his spot.

Ben shrugs almost knocking Bev from his shoulder. “Oh um, I don’t know. I tried to open a school to help teach animals to read, fell in love with a girl who then disappeared and now I’m here. What about you?”

At first, his only response from Bev is a long sigh. Richie gets up to join them and listens. Bev looks down at her little feet still on Ben’s shoulder. “It’s not really something I wanna talk about but I guess in short, I made my dad mad one day because he claimed I was growing up too fast so he turned me into a bird thinking I couldn’t fly away. . .”

“Jokes on him,” comments Richie while leaning close by. “You flew away.”

“Right, but I’d like to go back. I don’t think my aunt has any idea what happened to me, she must be worried sick.”

“Is that why you need to go to Adelaide’s so bad?” Richie asks.

“Yeah.”

They quiet down, Ben opens the last of the doors to find nothing. The three stand there staring at the emptiness only for a large crash clattering behind them. Ben grabs Richie shoving him inside before hopping in behind him with Bev on his shoulder. He pushed the door closed and the three hide inside, all cramped up, Richie stands all crooked as Ben holds the doors closed. Outside there’s a lot of noise, so much of it, but all nonsense. Just sounds until nothing.

“We should wait a little longer,” Bev whispers.

“I want it to be clear that I’m not really into either of you,” says Richie.

Ben squints at him. Richie attempts to fix how he stands only for his foot to go straight through the back of the cabinet. When he struggles to free his foot, he looks down seeing light spill through the hole. Him and Ben remain too close to comfort and it may be quiet on the outside but they look at each other.

“Go see what’s up,” Ben tells Richie.

“No, you go.”

Bev groans. “I’ll go.” She flies through the hole Richie created.

Richie pulls away at some of the wood before getting down to follow her and Ben does the same. On the other side, they find themselves in a room with mirrors and golden frills lacing around them towards the ceiling, it looks like ivy is growing on the walls. The ceiling is painted more like the chairs outside, all pastels with a woman in a large pink dress on a tree swing but here it’s not birds who watch her but instead a man. 

Only Richie looks up the longest at the painting, “Do you think he can see up her dress?”

“Shut up, Richie,” says Bev.

“Weird how before everything was Georgian and here this is more Rococo,” comments Ben.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Richie looks at him.

“The architecture, Georgian was like in Stan’s side, which is. . .”

Richie pushes his glasses back up. “Nerd alert.” He starts to walk away from Ben and Bev looking around them. “So now what?”

“What about you?” Ben asks. He also points at a doorway which he heads toward forcing them all to go in the same direction.

“What do you mean what about me?” Richie pauses to poke some strange marble sculpture looking like a person made of blocks. He turns and looks at Ben. “Hey look, it’s you.”

“Like what’s your story?” Ben walks by ignoring the comment.

They’re surrounded by marble statues, all of which look like shapes put together inventing somewhat humanoid forms. Richie mocks one of them but doesn’t get a laugh. He rolls his eyes as he continues to face Ben and Bev. “I don’t have much of one, I don’t know. I have a normal life or I had a normal life until _this_.”

Bev flies around him, the three are walking past all the strange statues. “Ok, so what happened in your life before _this_?”

Richie shrugs this question off even though he offers up an answer. “I don’t know, it’s stupid. I like a person but that person thought I liked a whole other person and now both of those people are mad at me. The end.”

Again, Richie mocks one of the statues. Ben does laugh this time around, but not at Richie’s joke. “So much girl trouble,” he says before breaking back into his song. “I’m gonna love you girl until the end of time, Tell me girl, you’re gonna always be mine.”

To all this, Richie stops and stares breaking his pose. He’s about to say something but gives up and takes off, he keeps the lead as Ben still sings a bit behind him except then he’s not alone because Bev joins in. The two singing and taunting him. “Please don’t go girl, You would ruin my whole world, tell me you’ll stay, never ever go away. . .”

Thanks to all their singing, Richie comes so close to mentioning how he’d prefer to turn back around now to find Eddie, see what’s up. Except this sounds too obvious to him. Interrupting their teasing to suggest finding Eddie. What a tell tale sign. Instead, he glances back not really looking at either of them and fixes his glasses. “You need to start listening to better music.”


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie, Mike, Stan, and Bill find Stan's haunted painting and it looks like there's going to be a serious problem.

# III.

Stan stops. He puts a hand up getting Eddie, Bill, and Mike to stop behind them. They’re in a hallway that is about to open up into another room, which is more lit up. There are gas lamps guiding them along. Even though there are no windows, curtains line the hallway in parts, all of which are caught on the wind and yet there is no wind. Stan looks back at the three who all wait for him to make a comment.

“The music stopped,” he states.

Eddie looks all around as if he would see the music play reminding them You must remember this. . .

“W-W-W-We should k-keep walking,” Bill says.

Stan has a crooked smile, he lowers his hand and nods in reply. He takes the lead again. They enter a greenhouse where plants wait everywhere. Vines crawl up the rusted frames for the windows and it sure is hot. There’s no longer birds watching them, it’s the only plus.

“Who do you think the woman is?” Mike asks as if there’s nothing weird about their situation. Stan looks back at him all quizzical. “The woman from the painting you mentioned.”

“Oh, right.” Stan hesitates. He stands in the middle of all those plants. “Um, I’m not sure.”

“That’s really weird, right?” blurts Eddie looking at his new company, other than Bill. He knows Bill but somehow Bill got himself turned into a horse. “You all think this is weird? Like what are we doing? Why are we following this guy around? This is creepy.”

Everybody just gives him a look. It’s Bill who has to make some comment on the matter. “Calm d-d-down, E-Eddie.”

“NO! I won’t calm down!” 

Eddie yells only for some pounding sound on one of many windows. He stops and they all look around unable to see anything except cracks crawl their way upwards before splitting apart completely. It rains down on them and they all make a sprint across the room breaking free before more glass panes come crashing down on where they once stood. Feathers fall, too. A peacock lands on the floor screaming at them.

“We should run,” Eddie whispers.

Nobody moves.

“Really! We should really run.”

Everybody moves, but mainly because the peacock lunges at them and they take off in a sprint. Bill takes an easy lead with being a horse and all. But at least they are all fast, well, almost all. Eddie finds himself slowing down with each running step. His lungs are on fire and there’s the chance he could have an asthma attack and if he has an asthma attack then he could die and if he died then well, he’d be dead, which is pretty bad.

Eddie collides into Mike almost falling over. They stopped inside a large bedroom, it even has one of those beds with four masts and curtains hanging over it. Again without the windows and a steady breeze. Up on the wall is the portrait of a woman who looks as if her spinal cord has been snapped by the way she tilts her head to the side, her neck bends too much. Her eyes are huge, vertical blue ovals. Long brown hair frames her oval face.

“I don’t like that.” Mike points at the painting.

“Same,” replies Bill.

“That’s the lady I told you about.”

A chorus of ohs follows this statement. Stan looks over at them. “We should go.” He starts to back up. “Come on.”

“Guys. . .” Mike doesn’t turn around when Stan, Eddie, and Bill do. They look to him as he stands there pointing at the portrait. “Where’d she go?”

“Huh?” retorts Eddie. “Stop it.”

“No.” Mike still points at the painting.

When they look back, she’s gone. Stan stumbles a bit. “Oh no, no, no. . .not this again.”

Mike still points at the painting but looks at them. “It.”


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers are attacked by something strange.

IV.

“EDDIE!” Richie shouts, which is only a welcome sound to Eddie seeing him, Bill, Stan, and Mike are in equal danger together as the crooked painting lady lunges at them. She opens her mouth revealing quite a large amount of teeth. Paint drips from her fingers, falling in droplets like blood but it’s all black.

Bev though makes a first attempt to save the day as she flies straight into the painted woman. She pecks at the woman’s face causing little to no damage. She’s flicked away almost hitting a wall. The painted lady leaps forward. Bill, Eddie, Mike, and Stan are all backing away from her only to find themselves backed up into corners. 

Wasting no time at all, she grabs Stan first, throwing him to the ground and makes a valiant attempt to bite his face off. He’s struggling, her teeth break skin. Richie doesn’t run after him but Eddie who is breathing heavily in a corner, Bev is starting to move again. It’s Ben who puts some thought into what to do next. He grabs the grame from the wall, he almost teeters off balance but makes it over to the painted lady swinging it into her. 

The force knocks her over, her teeth still sliced straight through Stan’s face. Paint and blood splatters. Her bones snap and turn all crooked right before she makes a run up the wall like a skittering cockroach.

“Ew. . .” mutters Richie.

The painted lady hisses at them, her feet and hands holding her still, sideways, up on the wall. 

Bev flies into the air not really looking at the creature. “Oh my God! RUN!” None of them move though. 

Richie backs away a bit from Eddie. He holds one hand out to him as if to say he’s not going far, not that Eddie sees this, he’s distracted by the weird creature on the wall. Richie reaches behind himself with his other hand to grab a poker from the fireplace. Him and Ben are armed.

“Bev’s right,” Mike says this a little too calm, “We run! Run to the ferry, we gotta get to Adelaide’s.”

The painted lady chokes on a laugh. Her one hand releases the wall, its melting before their eyes. Her other hand drops away as black paint splatters on the ground. Each droplet turns into a little black turtle which scurries away. The rest of her body melts, but she still chuckles at them with all those teeth, but then her teeth fall from her mouth like shards of glass as her face melts, paint on the floor to black turtle.

Nobody moves other than Stan who curls up on the ground.

“You’re right, she was ugly,” Richie comments.

“Beep, beep!” snaps Eddie.

“What? We were all thinking it.”

“I wasn’t!”

Ben kneels beside Stan. “Do you know if there’s any first aid around?”

“No,” mutters Stan as he sits up to lean into a wall. There are a few puncture wounds and scrapes along his face.

“Everybody, go look for some bandages.” Ben looks at them.

Eddie hops forward a bit. “I got this! I know what I’m doing.” He’s the first to exit.

Richie looks at everybody else, fire poker still in hand. “He really doesn’t.”

From the next room, they can all hear, “SHUT UP, RICHIE!”

###

Stan looks about as perturbed as anybody could manage. He stands outside with everybody else staring at the mansion. He has bandages wrapped around his face, they are very haphazard and he doesn’t seem ready to talk about it.

“I told you he didn’t know,” Richie whispers to him while hanging onto his frog friend.

All he gets out of Stan is one long and silent look.

Ben is busy looking around outside at the building even though Bev has insisted they leave several times or they’ll miss the ferry. Already, they’ll have to sneak on. Ben looks over them. “What I can’t figure out is why the architecture is so different. It’s like two buildings colliding into each other.”

“Nerd alert,” mutters Richie.

Eddie elbows him and Stan gives him _the look_ again.

“What? I mean! That’s what he asks about! You guys are nuts.”

Ben pulls at some vines finding a little sign there Patricia Blum Tea Company. He turns to Stan who shrugs as a response. As Stan has put it many times: _I’m not sure if I’ve always lived in this manor._

“Guys, we’re gonna miss our chance!” Bev pipes up again.

Bill ends up taking the lead. He’s still a horse but he turns around to walk, which gets Mike and Ben to walk. Richie and Eddie stand looking at Stan who stares at the manor before he turns looking at them. The color in his face blanches, what they could see of it. He’s quiet and waves to them. Eddie waves and starts to back up tugging at Richie to follow.

“What? Stanny? You’re not coming?” blurts Richie.

Stan stares at him thinking over this comment. Sounds like an invitation but also this has been the loudest and most annoying of the group. He continues to give Richie _the look_ while thinking of it all.

“Um ok then.” Richie takes a step back. “I guess you can stay there with that _thing_ , if you wanna.”

Stan rolls his eyes and sighs. “No, I’m coming.” He walks with Richie to catch up with the larger group. They still have half a day in front of them, maybe. The sun isn’t quite ready to set yet and according to Bev, they should make it in time to the ferry to figure out some guise to get on for free then it’s onward to Adelaide’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next! We're headed to Adelaide's for some betrayal.
> 
> P.S. If you're enjoying this, pls drop a comment or a kudos. I know we could all use a positive thing. If you hate it, pls let me suffer in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having fun and look forward to getting towards I guess the middle but hey! if you're enjoying this please let me know otherwise if you hate me, pls keep that a secret.


End file.
